Does stroke impair immunological memory and increase infectious disease risk during the chronic phase of recovery

Stroke patients are increasingly surviving long-term after the primary neurological insult. Post-stroke complications have thus rapidly become an area of unmet clinical need. Infection is a common and dangerous complication of stroke associated with increased death and disability.

Stroke-induced immune suppression is associated with infection susceptibility, but the majority of studies have focused on short-term (hours to days) changes to immune function. My recent data show early reduced numbers of lymphocytes and dendritic cells in experimental and clinical settings. It is unknown whether this impacts adaptive immune function and immunological memory.

Using experimental animal models and parallel analysis of population health data sets, key goals of this proposal are: 1.

To understand the extent and persistence of changes to adaptive immune cells after stroke and how this relates to infection susceptibility. 2. To determine if previously generated adaptive immunological memory is lost after stroke. 3. To determine if generation of new adaptive immunological memory is impaired after stroke.

This will generate understanding of the extent of adaptive immune memory deficits after stroke and the window of susceptibility in which stroke patients are vulnerable to infection and could result in new therapeutic approaches to reduce infection and improve long-term patient outcome.